Portrait Chapter 2 Notes

Portrait: Chapter 2

70 “Black Twist” strong tobacco twisted into a rope
“All serene” = no problem
Black Rock—a suburb south of Dublin
Immediate change in style/ syntax

71 Stephan training as runner
“…he knelt on his red handkerchief and read above his breath…” Color imagery…Catholic Church

72 Disinterest in religion (thoughts respect)
“His evenings were his own; and he pored over a ragged translation of The Count of Monte Cristo…”

73 “Madam I never eat muscatel grapes” a quote from the Count of Monte Cristo, made by the her Dantes (the dark avenger) to Mercedes (his love)
“Carrickmines…Stradbook” villages sout of Blackrock
New friend- Aubrey Mills- adventures

74 Apprehension of envisioning future continuing distancing from other children- restlessness and
solitude“In a vague way he understood that his father was in trouble…For some time he had felt the slight
changes in his house…”
“He did not want to play. He wanted to meet in the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld.”

75 “Caravans” horse-drawn covered cart or wagon
Coerced move to new house in Dublin… more active city life, less provincial
(Simon Dedalus, Stephen’s father and his family had enjoyed moderate prosperity. However, in this chapter,
he falls on hard times, has to move his family to Dublin, and cannot sent Stephen back to
Clongowes. Later, he will be enrolled in Belvedere, another Jesuit school, with his brother Maurice.)

76 “He was angry with himself for being young and the prey of restless foolish impulses, angry also with the change of fortune which was reshaping the world about him into a visions of squalor and insincerity. Yet his anger lent nothing to the vision. He chronicled with patience what he saw, detaching himself from it and testing its mortifying flavour in secret.”

77 “Pantomime” popular show with song, dance, a loose story line and local references
“stone of coal” a stone is approximately 14 pounds;

78 “crackers” decorated noise makers, often with small gifts inside
“tram” means of public transportation, during this period changing from horse-drawn to electric- powered

79 “His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon the tide” – Dublin simile. Awareness of opposite sex…interest; memory of Eileen. “Now, as then, he stood listlessly in his place, seemingly a tranquil watcher of the scene before him.”
“emerald exercise” patriotic green notebook for student work
A. M. D. G. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (For the greater glory of God)
To E- C- : In Chapter III, we find out that this is Emma; in Stephen Hero (an early version of the novel) there is a similar young woman named Emma Clery.

80 “second moiety notices” legal notices involving bankruptcy
“All of these elements which he deemed common and insignificant fell out of the scene.” –Process oriented.
L.D.S Laus Deo Semper (Praise to the Lord always) Another Jesuit motto that would be appended to student work.

81 “Christian brothers” another order like Jesuits, thought to be less prestigious and showing the snobbish nature of Stephen’s father.
Little brother, Maurice
“The Corporation” the Dublin Corporation, the city’s administrative and legislative body

82 “Whitsuntide” week beginning with Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter
“Stewards” ushers

83 “Stephen, though in deference to his reputation for essay writing…”
85 “smiled in his rivals face, beaked like a birds. He had often thought it strange that Vincent Heron had a bird’s face as well as a bird’s name.”
“beads” saying of the Rosary

86 Two years passage of time

87 “one sure five” a certainty
Confiteor: Prayer in preparation for the Confession
“His sensitive nature was still smarting under the lashes of an undivined and squalid way of life…He had emerged from a two years’ spell of revery to find himself in the midst of a new scene, every event and figure of which affected him intimately, disheartened him or allured and, whether alluring or disheartening, filled him always with unrest and bitter thoughts.” (Chiasmic pattern)

88 Heresy in his essay! (The heresy is that Stephen denies that the soul could ever come closer to divine perfection, although it is acceptable to say that it can never attain it.)

90 Poetry debate, Tennyson vs. Byron 2 years prior “Stephen forgot the silent vows he had been making and burst out…”
“Slates in the yard” on the walls of the urinal
“the loft” place for punishment at Clongowes

91 “…and the, torn and flushed and panting, stumbled after them half blinded with tears, clenching his fists madly and sobbing.”

92 “But the pressure of her fingers had been lighter and steadier: and suddenly the memory of their touch traversed his brain and body like an invisibly warm wave.”
“in a great bake” angry or agitated

94 “for one rare moment he seemed clothed in the real apparel of boyhood.”
95 “horse piss and rotted straw.” Connection to previous and future imagery

96 “jingle” a horse-drawn car
Death of Uncle Charles-retrospect
“Terror of sleep fascinated his mind.”

97 “Come-all yous” street ballads
“Drisheens” a sort of sweet bread make with sheeps intestines
Simon struggles with his own mortality as he realizes that the names of his past in Cork are no longer know, remembered, etc. Desire to share past experience with son; personal narrative

98 Simon searches desk for his initials carved in while in school; metaphorical search for mark left on the past => future


99 “Groceries” a pub that also sold groceries
Source of reveries “His recent monstrous reveries came thronging into his memory…He had soon given into them and allowed them to sweep across and abase his intellect, wondering always where they came from, from what den of monstrous images, and always weak and humble towards others, restless and sickened of himself when they had swept over him.”
Poetic reverie reaction to Dad’s comments
“free boy” a boy on scholarship

100 “maneens” insulting term (little men)

101 “slim jim” a long jelly candy
Recollection of childhood in last paragraph speaks to maturation of character and perception. Syntax parallels fragmented style of chapter one…provides a stylistic complement and contrasts with the smoother, more mature syntax of Chapter 2. Reminder of Stephen’s maturation

102 “lob” some amount of money (penny)
“jackeen” arrogant, lower-class person
“Tempora mutantur nos…illis” Latin: Circumstances change and we change in them…second version… and we change with them.
Teasing Stephan about flirting-father denies his potential feelings/sexuality “Hes not that way built…Hes a levelheaded thinking boy who doesn’t bother his head with that kind of nonsense.”

103 “Your father, said the little old man to Stephen, was the boldest flirt in the city of Cork in his day.” Establishes sexual competition (Freudian) between father and son
Father: “Don’t be putting ideas into his head…Leave him to his maker.” Irony; Ideas are already in Stephen’s head. Simon seems unable/unwilling to recognize that Stephen has the same desires that he did as an adolescent.

104 “ He had known neither the pleasure of companionship with others nor the vigour of rude male health nor filial piety. Nothing stirred within his soul but a cold and cruel and loveless lust. His childhood was dead on lost and with it his soul capable of simple joys.”
Moon/Earth Imagery-Shelley Fragment*

105 “Exhibition” outstanding performance in one of the annual national academic examinations

106-107 Wins money for essay writing…enjoys buying things for his family, but money quickly wears out…isolation from brother and sister- “the lives he sought to approach.”
“He saw clearly too his own future isolation.”
“He cared little that he was is mortal sin, that his life had grown to be a tissue of subterfuge and falsehood.”
“Only the morning pained him with its dim memory of dark orgiastic riot, its keen and humiliating sense of transgression. He returned to his wanderings.”

108 “Such moments…”

109 Imagery… “darker than the swoon of skin, softer than sound or odour.” Appeal to woman

* Fragment (The existing lines are the beginning of a never-completed poem by the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley)

To the Moon

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth
And every changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its consistency.